Trampled innocence

Police probe the murder of eight year old Nirmala Ranasinghe:

There were petitions lying on the table of the OIC of the Eheliyagoda police station a fortnight ago. Most petitions were regarding the locations where illicit liquor was being brewed in the area.

Other petitions were regarding criminals who were absconding the police because there were warrants for their arrest issued by the courts. While perusing each petition diligently he came across a petition that caught his eye. It sent shivers down his spine.

It was about a disappearance of a little girl named Nirmala Ranasinghe, (eight years old) from her home at Dulgalakanda at Maniyangama in the Avissawella area. The cheerful little girl who lived with her father had disappeared all of a sudden from her home.

However persons in the neighbourhood suspected that something might have happened to her after she mysteriously disappeared from her home. No one in the neighbourhood knew exactly where she was and began to worry about her.

When they inquired from her father about Nirmala they were told vaguely that she had gone to live with a relative. The neighbours however felt suspicious knowing the past record of the man.

Some even suspected foul play owing to the erratic behaviour of her father. He was a labourer without permanent employment who eked out a living by doing various odd jobs in Eheliyagoda and in Avissawella; an alcoholic who busted up the little money that he earned daily on drinks. He was an evil man. He came home every night punch drunk and assaulted his little daughter for no apparent reason.

According to Avissawella police the man was married earlier to another woman who bore three children, two boys and a girl. His wife deserted him along with the children due to his incorrigible habits. He was a desperate man who used to quarrel with his wife and children after liquor.

After separating from her husband a few years back she went to live with another man elsewhere. Meanwhile the man started another life by cohabiting with another woman who bore three children. The eldest girl was Nirmala aged eight years. After living with the man for a few years something horrible happened to her.

The woman committed suicide by swallowing some poison while he was away from home. But the police have now begun to question whether she actually committed suicide or was made to drink the poison by her husband. Avissawella police said they will probe further to ascertain whether she was murdered.

After the death of his mistress the man begun to live with her eldest daughter Nirmala in the same house.

Her other two younger siblings were given over to another couple for adoption. According to Avissawella police the man had come home drunk that night and mercilessly assaulted the little daughter.

Being an ill fed and undernourished child, Nirmala was too weak to withstand a murderous assault by her father. She quickly succumbed to her injuries. Then to cover his tracks that night, he quickly dug a shallow pit behind his house hastily and buried his daughter.

A month passed by and the neighbours began suspecting foul play. There were petitions to Eheliyagoda police station regarding the disappearance of Nirmala. Finally the Avissawella police arrested the suspect at Yogama in the Dehiowita area for questioning. The police later exhumed Nirmala's body buried in a shallow pit behind the kitchen of their home.

SP Avissawella Police, M. Bandusena has instructed HQI Avissawella Chief Inspector Nalin Attanayake to investigate the gruesome murder of the child.

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